New Year Message from the ITU Secretary-General—Bringing the Benefits of Digital Transformation to All—

Houlin Zhao

Secretary-General
International Telecommunication Union

Dear Friends of ITU in Japan,
This past year has been full of challenges, fromcoping with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic toaddressing the increasingly devastating impacts of climate change.
Information and communication technologies (ICTs) haveemerged as a powerful source for good, with an unprecedented 4.9
billion people using the Internet in 2021. ICTs have changed ourlives and societies forever, but we must never forget all those whoremain offline and are still left behind.
The UN Secretary-General himself has challenged theworld to achieve affordable, universal connectivity by 2030. It isa huge challenge – one that will require a new strategy for ICT
development, especially when it comes to investments in digital
infrastructure in underserved areas.
Investment in infrastructure sits at the center of my strategy
for ICT development, based on four pillars: Infrastructure,Investment, Innovation and Inclusiveness. I have stressed theimportance of these “4 I’s” at major global venues with world
leaders since the start of the crisis, and I count on all ITU partners
in Japan to help carry this vision forward.
I commend the Government of Japan for supporting ITU in
its efforts to expand access to affordable and reliable connectivity
in some of the least well-connected countries in the responseto and aftermath of the pandemic through initiatives such as
Connect2Recover. The foundational work of this initiative on
data, resilience and policy will help support other landmark
initiatives like Giga, the joint ITU-UNICEF global initiative toconnect every school to the Internet by 2030.
All these initiatives harness the power of ICTs and emerging

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technologies ranging from AI to 5G to accelerate progress on
the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and addresshumanity’s most pressing challenges. As a long-established global
source of ICT innovation and a leader in important areas of ITU’swork, Japan has a prominent role to play in this endeavour.
I applaud Japan’s mobile operators for accelerating their 5Groll out since the start of 2021. ITU plays a central part in thedevelopment of 5G mobile networks by both managing theradio spectrum and developing globally applicable standards forInternational Mobile Telecommunications (IMT), such as thedetailed specifications of the terrestrial radio interfaces of IMT2020 published by ITU in February 2021.
The year ahead will be a big year for ITU and the worldof ICT, with the World Telecommunication Standardization
Assembly, the World Telecommunication Development
Conference and the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference 2022 allbeing held in the span of a single year. I am confident that Japan
will take an active part in these conferences and in bringing thebenefits of digital transformation to all.
I thank the Government of Japan for its role in thedevelopment of ICTs and its significant financial support to ITU,
as well as the many Japanese companies that are Sector Membersof ITU and our Japanese Academia Members for providing ITU
with valuable technical expertise.
As 2021 marked the 50th anniversary of the ITU Associationof Japan, we at ITU are grateful for the continued support we havereceived from ITU-AJ and look forward to what this partnershipwill bring for the next 50 years to come.
Wishing you all a healthy, peaceful, and happy New Year!